Bungling nurse is banned for a year

A BUNGLING nurse whose colleagues had to step in to stop her giving a patient a fatal overdose has been banned from the job for a year. Julie Darlington, 28, was demoted to working as a healthcare assistant. It was said she failed to understand basic medical conditions at North Manchester General, and Fairfield Hospital in Bury.

A BUNGLING nurse whose colleagues had to step in to stop her giving a patient a fatal overdose has been banned from the job for a year. Julie Darlington, 28, was demoted to working as a healthcare assistant.

It was said she failed to understand basic medical conditions at North Manchester General, and Fairfield Hospital in Bury.

Her bosses had to supervise her to prevent her harming people in error and giving them the wrong instructions about how to take their medicine when they went home. They said she tried to give a patient three times the safe dose of a painkilling drug similar to heroin in error.

On another occasion she `rammed' a tube into a patient's nose causing her to scream in agony. She was also spotted recording identical information for two patients, one who was dying and one who was about to go home.

The nursing and midwifery council heard she was unable to explain what a gall bladder was. It took her hours to complete a drug round and she failed to complete care plans.

When she was asked to get a diabetic's blood-glucose reading she relied on one that had been taken two hours earlier.

She was transferred to the day surgery unit at Fairfield Hospital where she was closely supervised and given extra training but her performance was still below standard.

She was suspended when she failed to carry out the proper checks on a critically-ill patient.

Darlington, from Tottington, Bury, admitted incompetence saying she was stressed at work because of health problems.

Standards

Panel chief Irene Read said: "In view of the support already offered to the nurse by her employers, we have no confidence in her potential to achieve the required standards."

A spokesman for Pennine Acute Trust which runs hospitals in North Manchester, Bury, Oldham and Rochdale said: "Julie Darlington is currently working for us as a healthcare support worker. This is not a nursing role.

"It is not the trust's decision to reinstate Julie Darlington should she want to return to nursing. She would have to reapply to the Nursing and Midwifery Council if she wished to retrain as a nurse."